Board of Directors

Officers

Wan-Mo Kang – Chair (Princeton, NJ) is a partner at Fox Rothschild LLP in Princeton, NJ and practices general corporate law, labor and employment law, and corporate litigation. Mr. Kang is the former chair of the firm’s International Practice Group. Since immigrating to the United States in 1981, Mr. Kang has been a tireless community advocate. He is a founding member of YKASEC and NAKASEC, and was selected as a “New Jersey Rising Star” by New Jersey Monthly Magazine and Law & Politics Magazine in 2007. He also worked as a journalist for New York based Korean newspapers after immigrating to the United States.

Inhe Choi – Vice Chair (Chicago, IL) is the Executive Director of the Hana Center. Prior to joining KRCC’s staff in 2014, Ms. Choi worked as an independent consultant for nine years assisting community-based organizations and foundations with capacity building and strategic planning. Ms. Choi also served as the Program Director of the Crossroads Fund, the Asian American Liaison for the Harold Washington administration in Chicago and a community organizer for the Metropolitan Tenants Organization. She is a co-founder of Korean American Women In Need (KAN-WIN).

Cliff Sukjae Lee – Secretary (Garden Grove, CA) practices eastern medicine in Orange County, CA. Before moving to California, Mr. Lee was a high school math teacher in Philadelphia, PA, with experience in community organizing and neighborhood-based ESOL popular education, when he first became involved with the then NAKASEC-affiliated Korean American Community Center and also with Young Koreans United (YKU). He is a former board member of the Korean Resource Center, and a founding member of SoRi-MoRi Philadelphia Korean Cultural Troupe.

Amanda Lowrey aka Kim Eun-Ja – Treasurer (Honolulu, HI) works for the Hawaii Department of Health as the State Shellfish Specialist and a sanitarian. She was born near Kunsan, South Korea and adopted to the United States. She is a state board director of the Hawaii Government Employee Association (AFSCME Local 152) and volunteers for both the Hawaii Academy of Science and Korean Adoptees of Hawaii. Dr. Lowrey grew up in Virginia and attended the University of Miami, majoring in biology and German and later earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Northwestern University

Board Members

Dan Choi (Philadelphia, PA)is an immigration attorney in private practice, primarily focusing on asylum and removal defense cases. His current practice serves a diverse group of immigrant clients. Previously, he was a legal aid attorney working with low-income immigrant workers, consumers and tenants in Virginia and returning citizens in Washington D.C. Born in South Korea and raised in New York City, Dan moved to Philadelphia in 2015.

Helen Gym (Philadelphia, PA) is a former teacher and 20-year community organizer who comes out of Philadelphia’s Asian American, immigrant, and public education communities. In her first term on Philadelphia’s City Council, she is championing an anti-poverty agenda to lift wages, improve public schools, expand right to counsel, and reform the criminal justice system. She is the first Asian American Democrat and first Asian American woman elected to Philadelphia’s City Council, and was recently awarded Emily’s List 2017 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award.

Ju Hong (Sacramento, CA) serves as a Program Analyst of the California Department of Social Services, developing and implementing programs and funding initiatives to support legal services, outreach, community education, and other immigration integration efforts. In 2013, he challenged President Obama on a record number of deportations during his speech in San Francisco. Mr. Hong holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley, and a M.A. in Public Administration from San Francisco State University. He is also a certified coach and a member of the Leadership Council of Educators for Fair Consideration.

Emily Kessel (Arlington, VA) works at the nonprofit organization Cultural Vistas in Washington D.C. as the Program Director of the Korea WEST program. Previously she worked at NAKASEC as the Policy Coordinator and Advocacy Director and is a co-founder of the Adoptee Rights Campaign which fights for all intercountry adoptees right to U.S. citizenship. Ms. Kessel is a Minnesota native and lived in Korea as a Fulbright grantee and M.A. student of the Language Flagship program based in Hawai’i.

Nanwon Kim (Princeton, NJ) currently teaches at the Johnson Park Elementary School. She has previously held positions at the United Methodist Church Office for the United Nations, Asian American Legal Defense Fund, and the Coalition Against Anti-Asian Violence. Ms. Kim is a current member of the Christian Life Community. She is a founding member of YKASEC and NAKASEC and holds a Master’s Degree from Yale Divinity School.

Julie Kil Joo Lee Kurumada (La Crescenta, CA)is a retiree who was a founding board member of the Korean Resource Center (KRC) in Los Angeles and the founding board chair of NAKASEC. She is a fierce advocate for immigrant rights and volunteers three days per week at KRC assisting Korean seniors with housing, health care and other critical services. She was born in in Manchuria, China and graduated from Seoul National University in 1968, majoring in voice.

Edward Chongkuk Lee (Philadelphia, PA) is a business owner of Copiro, inc. Prior to this, he ran a small food market and worked as an independent distributor and reverse logistics contractor. Mr. Lee immigrated to the U. S. with his family in June 1980. He studied Electrical Engineering in Drexel University. He has been actively involved with Young Koreans United and Korean Alliance for Peace & Justice. He currently participates in the progressive movement in the Philadelphia area to uplift Korean and Korean American issues as well as participates in state level advocacy.

Rev. Eun-Sang Lee (Denver, CO) is currently a pastor at Wheat Ridge UMC, Wheat Ridge, CO. He was ordained in the United Methodist Church in 1993 and has served churches in Denver and Salt Lake City, UT. Reverend Lee spent his childhood in Incheon, South Korea and immigrated to the United States in 1978. He has a Master of Divinity from Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO.

Kent Chaegu Lee (Chicago, IL) is the Program Director at the Salvation Army Mayfair Community Church in Chicago. He was a founding member and a former Executive Director at the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center (KRCC) for over a decade and currently serves as a Hana Center board member. He advocated for and served on the Independent Monitoring Board of ICE in Chicago. He was an active member of Young Koreans United.

Felix Lim (Kirkland, WA)is a Software Engineer for Microsoft. He was an active member of Young Koreans United of Seattle between 1998 and 2003. Mr. Lim has been an active participant in building social justice movements through social media and lives with his family in the Seattle area. He graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Doorae Shin (Honolulu, HI) is the Plastic Free Hawaii Manager for the Kokua Hawaii Foundation. Her kick start into community organizing was a full-time internship with NAKASEC when she was 15. She went on to graduate from the University of Hawaiʻi with a B.A. in Sustainability Studies. Ms. Shin has worked on several social justice and environmental issues as a student, and is now an active member of the environmental movement in Hawaii.

Inbo Sim (Irvine, CA); works as an accountant in the greater Los Angeles and Orange County area. He joined the Korean Resource Center as an Intern during the summer of 1984 and later served as its Program Director, Executive Director, and is now a member of the Board of Directors. Mr. Sim also was a Young Koreans United member from 1984 to 2004.